Foreign Accents partners with HGTV’s Michael Payne for rugs

Albuquerque, N.M. – Contemporary area rug house Foreign Accents, which this year turns 25 years old, has joined forces with HGTV celebrity designer Michael Payne to co-create a new line of branded area rugs.

“Our partnership is a natural fit given his passion for clean, contemporary design, his association with other leading contemporary home furnishings companies and our 25-year history making contemporary rugs,” said Trish Rempen, president and ceo, Foreign Accents.

Payne, host of the long-running “Designing For The Sexes” program as well as author of Let’s Ask Michael, first explored the idea of partnering during the High Point Market this past spring.

Subsequent phone conversations fine-tuned the details and Payne began to work on his rug designs.

The inspiration for several of the designs in the new “Michael Payne Home Collection” stem from “Michael’s compulsion to look at the familiar in fresh ways,” Rempen said.

Payne added: “In designing rugs for Foreign Accents, I get my inspiration from nature and a variety of commonplace items, then translate them into dramatic forms. For instance, the Los Angeles freeway network inspired me to interpret that system into a graphic design for an area rug. To complete the designs, I select colors that work with today’s contemporary aesthetic.”

The rugs are hand-tufted in Favriel -- Foreign Accents’ trademarked signature modified acrylic yarn that has a wool-like hand.

The collection will be introduced, along with other products in the Michael Payne Home Collection, this fall at the Las Vegas and High Point markets.

“It is very exciting to have Foreign Accents provide area rugs that will be an integral part of the Michael Payne Home Collection,” Payne said.